Happy New Year to all of you out there in BanjoSnake Land!

I hope 2012 worked out for y'all... it seems like it was a pretty tough year all around.

I had a decent year... a one-man art opening at the finest gallery in the southwest, (there's still lots of art available... check it out! Tell your friends! Tell anyone you know with money! Shout it in the streets!) a bunch of gigs, lots of beautiful t-shirts (and panties!) with my designs on 'em, and a fair start on a new science-fiction novel didn't hurt. Not to mention eleven pretty "serious" blog posts... more than I've written in who knows when! But we all struggle. Life can be hard. We got to hang in there against all the ugly odds, y'all.

I have a good friend - one of my closest - but she's incredibly pessimistic. Last time she and I got into it over the "state of the world" she threw this at me: "No matter how terrible you think all our human problems are - war, famine, disease, climate change, illiteracy, overpopulation, greed, poverty, on and on and on - all of it means nothing and humanity is toast unless some hotshot genius kid somewhere invents an otherwise-benign bacteria that'll eat all our plastic waste."

Gee, that'll wake ya up in the morning.

She's also pretty pessimistic about all those other problems, too.

I got nothing but hope, y'all. I just can't get up every morning and think that we're living for nothing. I know I'm not gonna be the one that invents the plastic-eating bacteria, or cures cancer, or feeds the starving millions, or gets all the warlords to lay down their bombs and guns. But I can make art, and art makes people happy, and that's something. I saw recent post on "the facebook" that I liked: Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Yeah. I can do that.

So, to wit: I tell people that I'm not a "New Year's Resolutions" kind of guy, but I really am, I guess. Most of it is the usual quasi-self-deceptive nonsense: I'm gonna lose weight, I'm gonna go the gym, I'm gonna eat better, yadda yadda yadda. But I've got some other stuff in my bag, too: I'm starting on a new CD for the first time in ages... what... twelve years or something? Holy crap! I'm gonna finish that novel. I'm gonna make more visual art. And I've got a few other things that I'm playing close to my vest, but they're gonna be cool, I guarantee it. (And just for the record... I've been going to the gym six days a week, and I've totally given up sugar since the year turned. And I'm going to kendo class... come join us!)

Some days are harder than others. This morning I got up at the crack of dawn in -11 degree weather to go to the gym and the clutch in my truck was a goner. You just gotta roll with it. So stick with me, y'all! I've updated my gigs page for everything I've got so far this year, and I will continue to do so. Just click on the "gigs" button right over there to your left. Get off the couch and come out and see us play sometime! Stray Ravens! Kim and the Caballeros! Bone Orchard! And watch for lots more blogs that I'm working on right now. (An open letter to The President. An update and revision of my piece on our "gun problem." And an epic post about "movies and cars in America" that I may never finish, but it'll be staggering if I do!) Watch for announcements about the new recordings and new novel! And of course, more "Documents," Taos Edge t-shirts, and other visual art!

Keep the faith and see you around in 2013, everybody!